Share this:

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertising Policy, visit this page.

Even better, Capital One miles are now a flexible points currency with real power. On top of being able to redeem Capital One miles for travel purchases with the Purchase Eraser, you can transfer Capital One miles to more than a dozen airline programs, and at a solid ratio.

Capital One is offering a sign-up bonus on the Venture Rewards Credit Card for 50,000 miles after you spend $3,000 in the first three months. And if you’re a business owner, for a limited time you can get a whopping 200,000 Capital One bonus miles on the Capital One Spark Miles For Business card after a two-tier total spend of $50,000 in the first six months which, along with the miles earned from meeting the minimum spend, will result in an incredible total of 300,000 Capital One miles.

And with this offer, you still get all the great features of the Venture card I mentioned before, including 10x at Hotels.com and a $100 statement credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck every 5 years. To top it all off, the $95 annual fee is still waived for the first year. In my opinion, it’s an outstanding deal. Just remember that Capital One does pull from all three credit bureaus.

On the other hand, if you’ve got a business and can spend a lot of money on your credit card, there’s another offer that could be extremely interesting to you. The Capital One Spark Miles For Business card is offering an obscene 200,000 bonus miles in two tiers. First, you’ll earn 50,000 miles when you spend $5,000 in the first 3 months, then you’ll earn another 150,000 miles when you spend $50,000 in the first 6 months of opening your account. That’s on top of the 2 miles per dollar you already earn with the card on all purchases, which means after spending $50,000, you’ll have an incredible 300,000 Capital One miles in the bank.

Transfers to 12 of these partners will be at a ratio of 2 Capital One miles to 1.5 points or miles in the airline program. The exceptions are Emirates and Singapore: For these two programs, the transfer rate is 2:1. Why is Capital One basing its transfer ratio on 2 miles instead of 1? Because the Venture Rewards card — as well as the Capital One Spark Miles for Business Card — earns 2x miles on all your everyday purchases. So essentially for every dollar you spend on either card, you’re getting 1.5 points or miles in one of these transfer partners.

As for the partners themselves, there are some real gems here, like Air Canada’s Aeroplan, Avianca LifeMiles and Air France-KLM’s Flying Blue. Others require more effort to find value. But don’t worry, because our team of points and miles experts here at TPG created extensive guides on all of these airline programs — you’ll find links to those at the bottom of this post.

But the transfer partners aren’t limited to the Venture Rewards and Spark Miles for Business cards — the other two miles-earning Capital One cards earn the same transferable miles as well. These are the VentureOne Rewards card and the Capital One Spark Miles Select for Business, both of which have no annual fee but earn either 1.25x miles (VentureOne) or 1.5x miles (Spark Miles Select) on all purchases, which translates to either 0.94 or 1.12 transferred miles per dollar spent — still pretty good for cards with no annual fees.

Transfer Times, Valuation, Podcast and Facebook Live

Here’s a look at how long Capital One miles take to transfer to each partner based on our tests:

Program

Transfer Time

Aeromexico Club Premier

Instant

Air Canada Aeroplan

Instant

Air France-KLM Flying Blue

Instant

Alitalia MilleMiglia

Instant

Avianca LifeMiles

Instant

Cathay Pacific Asia Miles

5 business days

Emirates Skywards

Instant

Etihad Guest

24-hour turnaround

EVA Infinity MileageLands

36-hour turnaround

Finnair Plus

Instant

Hainan Fortune Wings Club

36-hour turnaround

Qantas Frequent Flyer

24-hour turnaround

Qatar Airways Privilege Club

24-hour turnaround

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer

36-hour turnaround

The addition of transfer partners means l needed to update my valuation of Capital One’s loyalty currency. It’s a pretty momentous change, so to help me make this decision, I asked my top points and miles experts to get together and discuss what kind of value they think people can expect to get with these different transfer partners. I could tell you what they said, but I thought it’d be more fun for you to experience the debate itself, so check out their Slack chat and find out what value they recommended I put on Capital One miles.

Also, I wanted to ask the folks at Capital One about how these new partners came together and what else we might expect going forward with their miles (because while I love this new feature, I’m greedy — I want even more. More partners, occasional transfer bonuses, maybe even a US airline or two.) So I sat down with Matt Knise, Business Director at Capital One and one of the architects of these new transfer partners. You can listen to our conversation on the very first episode of my podcast “Talking Points,“ which you’ll find below or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Acast, Overcast, TuneIn and PocketCasts.

Bottom Line

The Venture Rewards card has been our go-to credit card for booking company hotel stays ever since it introduced a 10x earning category for Hotels.com. Stacked with the one free night for every 10 paid nights you book through the Hotels.com Rewards program, you’re looking at an amazing 20% return on this spending — and yes, those 10x miles will be transferable at the same 2-to-1.5 or 2-to-1 ratio as all the other miles you earn. The Global Entry/TSA PreCheck application fee waiver only made this card more valuable, but the addition of airline transfer partners is a game-changer. While the 2-to-1.5 transfer ratio seems a little tricky at first glance, it’s easy when you think of it as 1.5 transferred points or miles earned for every dollar spent on the Venture Rewards or Spark Miles cards.

50,000 miles is the standard offer on the Venture card, though we did see a 75,000 mile offer for a short time. If you’re not yet a Capital One Venture card holder, apply now, bank your miles and then start deciding which partners you’re going to want to transfer your miles to for great redemptions.

Want to learn more about the Capital One airline transfer partners? See our in-depth guides:

Know before you go.

I would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletter and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email.
See PRIVACY POLICY.

Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

Disclaimer: The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

Advertiser Disclosure

The credit card offers that appear on the website are from credit card companies from which ThePointsGuy.com receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). This site does not include all credit card companies or all available credit card offers. Please view our advertising policy page for more information.

Editorial Note: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

The TPG Newsletter

BE A SMARTER TRAVELER: Get points strategies, customized alerts + more

Please enter a valid email address

Please check mailing preferences

I would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletter and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email.
See PRIVACY POLICY.

The credit card offers that appear on the website are from credit card companies from which ThePointsGuy.com receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). This site does not include all credit card companies or all available credit card offers. Please view our advertising policy page for more information.

Editorial Note: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.